Demand and Supply of Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Australia (2003)

Introduction
Report Structure
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Introduction

The third national report on teacher supply and demand titled “Demand and Supply of Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Australia” provides the most comprehensive overview to date of national teacher supply and demand issues affecting both government and non-government sectors.

This report, produced biennially, is an investigation of the main characteristics of the labour market for teachers in Australia. All States and Territories have contributed to this report and for the first time, the report includes the non-government school sector. The report looks at international examples of labour markets and recruitment policies employed, and analyses the long-term trends emerging in Australia's supply of teachers and the likelihood of future teacher shortages.

The report incorporates published data, qualitative research on teachers and principals, complementary research involving a series of research papers on various topics such as ageing of the teacher workforce, gender trends and teacher salaries; and a literature review incorporating both Australian and international research.

Report Structure

Following the introduction, the report is structured as follows:

Part A constitutes a point of reference for the subsequent parts of the report by providing an overview of the main characteristics of the Australian teaching workforce in the decade preceding 2000 or 2001 (depending on the availability of data). It consists of two chapters. Chapter 2 provides a distribution of teachers by State/Territory, sector and type of school. Chapter 3 deals with trends in the teacher labour market in the one or two decades preceding 2000 or 2001 again by State/Territory, sector and type of school. Specifically, it tries to identify teacher supply and demand imbalances in the decade leading to 2000 or 2001.

Part B overviews the state of the teacher labour market in Australia and in selected overseas countries. In Chapter 4, the report summarises the labour market for teachers in each State/Territory and specifies recruitment strategies for dealing with hard-to-fill teacher vacancies. Chapter 5 examines the state of the teacher labour market in the United States of America, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.

Part C provides a future outlook of demand for and supply of teachers. The first two chapters in this Part analyse factors affecting the demand for and the supply of teachers. Chapter 6 identifies two sources of demand for teachers: “growth demand” and “replacement demand”. Chapter 7 identifies four sources of supply of teachers: new graduates, teachers returning from leave and former teachers returning to teaching, the pool of relief, casual and contract teachers and overseas migration. Chapter 8 provides projections of teacher demand and supply to 2007 both at the national and State/Territory levels as well as an assessment of internal and external flexibilities and scope of adjustment in the market for teachers. Chapter 9 is devoted to the analysis of longer-term pressures on the teacher labour market coming, specifically, from the trends in the student enrolments and the ageing of the teacher workforce.

Part D provides a brief summary and conclusions, relating specifically, to the state of the teacher labour market in Australia in 2001, projections of demand for and supply of teachers to 2007. It also specifies possible longer-term sources of pressure on the market for teachers as well as provides observations on ways to improve the collection of relevant data.

A list of bibliographical sources, a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a glossary of specific terms and seven attachments complete the main body of report.

Part E reviews the qualitative research which forms part of this project. The aim was to provide better insights into factors that are important in attracting and retaining teachers through a survey questionnaire. A similar survey of primary and secondary school principals also forms part of the project and is reviewed in this part of the report.

Part F provides research papers on complementary topics, including:

• Implications of ageing of the national teaching workforce for supply of teachers;
• The influence of gender trends in the teaching workforce for supply of teachers;
• Employment paths of persons with teaching qualifications;
• Trends in supply of maths, science and ICT teachers; and
• Earnings of teachers by comparison with other professions.

Part G includes a literature survey, with respect to Australian and overseas literature relating to teacher supply and demand issues.

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